We had used free LAN messaging applications to carry out communication within our company’s work area. These free LAN messaging applications are chiefly designed to work in an extended LAN topography but we used it to function as local messenger. Although we also did use email, we found LAN messaging quicker, simpler, and therefore easier. It saved us from walking back and forth the entire work area to make simple yes-no inquiries with our colleagues. What’s more, it saves all the messages the employee sent to the colleagues who are not yet around for later viewing.
If a terminal had a network messenger installed, it was sure to be either one of the free applications like YM or MSN Instant Messenger. We are a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company and that means we have clients abroad that we communicate using network messengers. Information exchange between our company and our clients must be secure. Its protection must also be prioritized to ensure integrity and safety from eavesdroppers.

Finding a More Secure Office Communicator

Although I don’t dislike MSN or Yahoo! IMs, I believe they’re among the most useful IT developments. I still feel limited though when it comes to enforcing security and company rules with these free LAN messengers. And although we can apply some security measures through the servers in our network, it can’t be fully configured to fit our needs. My management team and I greatly feel the need for LAN messenger program compatibility with our server’s operating system. We want to have complete control over the office communicator and be able to fully enforce our company’s rules. Looking for a better yet affordable replacement, I discovered CorpSoft’s href="http://www.corpsoft.org/">OnLAN Messenger .
A concise description for OnLAN Messenger would be that it is an office communicator that operates on client-server setting. It allows more than one client to hook up with the server application. The office communicator also allows file sharing and is very flexible to make the necessary configurations for a business entity to ensure secure messaging and file exchange.
OnLAN Messenger is at an advantage over free network messengers like YM, MSN, Jabber, and ICQ because of its easy configurability, security, and provision for central control. Once security and business policies are set up in the network messenger’s server application, they are automatically enforced on all client applications. Since OnLAN Messenger was exclusively designed for an office network, it incorporates essential features needed in the working environment like the ability to still send a message to offline contacts and message traffic logs.

Easy Installation

Setting up the OnLAN office communicator on our company’s network was very easy. Our company’s managers were fully convinced that OnLAN was what we really needed and the employees immediately adapted to the client application on their terminals as it was designed to be comparable with the standard network messenger.

OnLAN Messenger’s Client Side

As mentioned, the new enterprise messenger’s interface had similar look and feel with the standard network messengers. Contact statuses can be easily known by its color. A contact’s name is red when its offline, blue when it’s online, and gray when it’s inactive.

Interface Tabbed Menu

There are four main tabs on the interface. They are Personal, Online, My Group, and All. The Personal tab shows the users grouped contacts. Groupings can be created, modified, or deleted anytime by the user. The Online tab shows a list of all online contacts. The My Group shows the group of contacts that the user belongs to, and the All tab shows grouped listings of all contacts. All lists are generated from the server’s database.

Exploring Other Interface Features

The Menu, History, and Settings buttons are on the href="http://www.corpsoft.org/">enterprise messenger’s interface. The Menu option provides access to the Help, Birthdays, Relog, and Refresh functions. You can also change your status in this option which could either be Playing, Conference, Do not Disturb, Busy, Working, Away, and Online. Birthdays give you an ordered list of contacts displayed according to whose birthday is nearest the present date. Relog brings up the log in dialog box for the user to revalidate his office messenger connection in the network. The Refresh function refreshes the list of contacts and their statuses on your window.
After testing the new office communicator, I found its History feature very useful. It is presented as a button in the office communicator that shows the Received, Sent, Dialogue, and System tabs. These tabs give useful information of past messages sent and received. The System tab generates complete chronological information on all messaging activities and file exchanges in the network. The information is easily identifiable and searchable because it shows time, status, and the complete message itself. This specific feature in the new office communicator has been very helpful during investigations of anomalies and departmental conflicts.
OnLAN Messenger was designed to have overall central control of its client applications. Specific functions in the Settings button which you’d still find on the client’s LAN messenger interface can actually be controlled by the systems administrator who can enable all, disable all, or just modify the access to some of the functions depending on the user’s security level. However, users can still add their personal touch by changing the interface’s color and sound themes.

The Enterprise Messenger’s System Administration

OnLAN Messenger’s design keeps a single point of control over all its client side applications. This is the feature that enforced my decision to introduce the new office communicator to the rest of the management team. The OnLAN server side is made up of the server and monitor modules.
The server module supports file structure and is the middleman between application and database. The monitor module facilitates data traffic and works with the server module to enforce the recovery feature in case of system failure. Both functions will work with our company’s network operating system.
Management for the entire office communicator is possible with both modules. The monitor module is able to start, restart, or shut down the server module, and it can be used to connect with other remote monitor modules. This LAN messenger is actually expandable. It can use a virtual private network to connect with the other OnLAN office communicators that are on networks in remote sites. Because this option is possible, all messages that are sent are encrypted.
The OnLAN server has a window used to access the control console and control the entire local messenger’s application. The server module proved to be invaluable to our IT department when they manage active http-sessions, authorize new contacts, append or modify the database, manage all users, and testing data flow between the server and clients.

Managing the Database

The database used to keep a log of messages for the previous network communicator used was MS Access where data still have to be input and managed manually. With CorpSoft’s new href="http://www.corpsoft.org/">enterprise messenger , database management is made easy because the application comes with DBsync, its very own database for free. Having its own database allows data portability.

Modifying Company Policies

Group and individual business rules are easily implemented throughout the entire network with the use of the Policy Editor window, found under the Tools option on OnLAN’s server application. Here, the systems administrator can make modifications on his own rules, modify messaging behavior, and change user views.

Tools for Audit

OnLAN Messenger continues to impress me with its very functional auditing tools. The tools are able to capture the entire network messenger’s statistical data at real time. Take a look at the following audit features provided by this new href="http://www.corpsoft.org/lan_messenger_download/">network messenger.
• Monitor Uptime – shows the amount of time the office communicator’s server module has been running, up to the last second.
• Last Server Start – data in dd.mm.yyyy, hh.mm.ss formats show when the server was last launched.
• Server Uptime – functions similarly with Monitor uptime.
• Last Server Stop – shows the exact time the server was shut down.
• Crashes – counts the number of crashes the office communicator has endured.
• Commands Executed – counts how many executed commands were completed at current runtime.
• Clients Timed Out – counts the number of clients that the office communicator failed to hook up with.
• Client Connection Errors – number of contact failures at current runtime.
• Unsent Messages – counts all unsent messages.
• Active Users Online – counts all active users.
• Blocked Users Online – counts all online blocked users.
• Online Users – counts all online users at current runtime.
• New Users – tracks all new user requests.
• Active HTTP Sessions – counts all active http-sessions.
• Total upload errors – counts all client errors.

Conclusion

OnLAN Messenger is definitely the perfect tool for small to medium-sized companies that want secure messaging, flexible applications, and reliable data management. Network messaging becomes very affordable, even cheap for its very efficient overall design and superior customer support.